Ask the Sexpert: Choosing a sex toy University Health Service

Larger, established companies are acquiring smaller innovative startups to enhance their product offerings, access new markets, or incorporate cutting-edge technologies. The Macaura’s Pulsocon Hand Vibrator, developed in the 1880s and sold until the early 1900s, was a complex hand-crank vibrator which could produce up to 5,000 vibrations per minute. While it may resemble a tool of torture, this device required considerable effort to use, as one had to hold an end and manually turn a crank handle while placing the other end onto their body. It was advertised as a self-administered treatment for various ailments. Those are pointy shoes that sometimes could reach 45 cm in length.

The Strategist’s best-selling vibrator, the Vibe from Maude, launched four years ago with a highly SFW gray-and-forest-green website that looks more like a place to buy linen goods or silk button-downs than sex toys. The Vibe is made with 100 percent platinum-grade silicone (Restriction of Hazardous Substances passed/FDA grade), has three speeds controlled via one button, comes in a small canvas zip pouch, and charges with a USB. Maude founder Éva Goicochea and co–creative director, actress Dakota Johnson, recently launched a second egg-shaped vibrator called the Drop (see below).

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